Whispers In The Dark
by TheFallenShadow
Summary: A seemingly insignificant young man gets caught up in the chaos of the Raccoon City disaster. This is the account of his attempt to escape.
1. A Voice In The Hallway

'**Shoot me! Just do it now!'**

**I hesitated, the gun wavering unsteadily in my hands. Was I really going to do this? Just kill a human being outright? It wasn't that I'd never shot anything before, I'd taken out one of those zombie bastards earlier. But this was different, and the mere thought made me sick.**

**'Kill me!' The girl screamed, her long brown hair matted and obscuring her face. There was a large, deep wound on the side of her neck, already beginning to clot.**

'**I-I can't-' I stuttered. Suddenly, she spasmed, and a long crimson spray of liquid flew from her lips. Who was I kidding? This girl was already dead.**

'**I'm sorry,' I murmured, too quiet for her to hear and raised the pistol level with her blood spattered forehead. She screamed again, a long pitiful howl, and my emotions hardened. If I didn't pop her now with one bullet, I'd only have to do it later with six. I pulled the trigger.**

**Eight minutes later I stumbled out of the corridor, my hands and jeans covered in drying blood. Using my left hand against the wall to steady myself, I limped towards my room, number 202, and fumbled around for the key in my pockets. My left arm felt kind of numb, as did my left hand after firing that gun. I twiddled the key around in the lock, and hobbled inside.**

**My room was a mess, as usual, scattered with pizza boxes, comic books, paperback novels and empty bottles of diet coke. One window at the back of the room gazed out into the Racoon City housing estates, the moonlight was hitting the glass at a slightly odd angle, giving the room an eerie feel. **

**I pushed a few boxes of cereal off the armchair and collapsed into it, placing the gun on the coffee table. Screw precautions, I was a murderer now. Maybe the police would come looking for me….**

**No. That was ridiculous. The RPD had way too much on their hands, what with those monsters outside, and communications were down. No phones, no radios, nothing. **

**Nothing….**

**I leant forward in the chair and massaged my eyelids slowly. That girl…I'd seen her before at the Dry Cleaning place a few roads down, but never bothered to talk to her. Wouldn't have been much use if I had done. Come to think of it, if she had never got involved with that dickhead of a boyfriend she never would have even entered this hellhole.**

**It began about a week ago. Me and some others who lived in the apartment had heard messages going round, just before the radio went down. Crazy stuff; monsters, zombies and all that crap. No one took it seriously until this really weird guy showed up in reception. He stank to high heaven and must have been sleeping rough. The landlord had left his office to see what was going on. He stepped up to the freak, acted as if to shake his hand, all friendly but still cautious. **

**He didn't stand a chance.**

**Within a matter of seconds, blood had sprayed up the walls, and the others, including me went hysterical and began to stampede back upstairs.**

**I can still hear the landlord's screaming as we abandoned him….**

**For three days we all hid out on the second floor, about nine of us. One guy, Hank, decided to go and see what was going on, check things out. We didn't see him again for hours, just heard the sound of chewing. But when he did come back, the guy was covered in blood and bites, all over his face and neck.**

**That was where I came in. Up until then, I'd been living on my own in room 202, helping myself to the various snacks in there. Soon, there's this girl banging on my door. Hanks girlfriend. She was crying and looked really rough. **

'**He…he was fine when he got back…' She sobbed, and then pulled away her scarf to reveal a large, bloody wound.**

'**But then he did _this _to me!' **

**I'd had some training as a doctor, before everything went tits up, so told this girl I'd do my best. She led me into her apartment, the door was only hanging by one rust, broken hinge-**

** -and there was this bloody, screaming guy on the floor, throwing some kind of tantrum. Hank.**

**Neither of us really knew what to do with him, so we tied him up-damn, was that dangerous- and locked him in the bathroom to get on with it. Soon, he quietened down, but we didn't let him out.**

**I stood up to leave after an hour of sitting with this girl, but suddenly she grabbed by the forearm, really tight. I could tell there was something really wrong with her, the way her eyes had gone white, and her were going dark brown.**

'**Shoot me! Just do it now!' She wailed at me. And that's when I became a murderer….**

**The chair was warm and comfortable, but I couldn't get my head down. Someone outside was moaning so loud I could hear it through the window, it was another one of those monsters.**

**Come to think of it, maybe it wasn't coming from outside. It seemed closer, maybe-**

** -I suddenly remembered the other survivors in the building. One of them had said something when I tied up Hank…**

'**If you don't untie him in two hours, asshole, I'm gonna do it myself,'**

**Shit!**

**I leapt up and threw open a chest of drawers. Two years ago I'd bought some ammunition and a large hunting knife from that Kendo place, and now they were both about to come in handy. The box of bullets was in a hidden draw, the knife inside a shoe box. I took both and shoved the knife into my belt, creating a makeshift holster for my weapon.**

**Stepping into the corridor, I raised my pistol and gazed out into the darkness. If anyone shoed up, there was no way of telling if they were human. **

'**Mmmrrurrhhhgghh…'**

**I whirled around, beginning to breath heavily. It was the same noise as before, only louder and nearer. One of those things was in here with me, maybe more if the others had got infected. **

'**Muurrghhh…' Louder. Nearer. But it was so dark I couldn't even see the walls. Was I gonna die?**

**Ten long, grubby fingers stroked slowly against my back, and primitive instincts kicked in. Keeping the weapon steady, and pointing it away from my chest, I crouched and spun round, simultaneously drawing the knife. With one sharp, fatal blow I thrust it in a downwards motion and felt something burst. The thing moaned pitifully, and I heard it fall to the ground with a thump, blood trickling gently from its new wound.**

'**Take that, motherfucker,' I growled, and kicked out with my left foot, hoping to crush its ugly head.**

**I didn't. The foot sailed through thin air, and for a moment I lost balanced. Suddenly, something grabbed my ankle, and I felt what could only be a mouth of broken teeth slide against my shoe.**

'**No!' I shouted, and aimed the gun roughly where its head must have been. If I didn't kill it now, my ankle was gonna be a lumpy chunk of meat.**

**I fired the weapon frantically, and sent three bullets into the floor, briefly lighting up the room. What I saw in that split second of light drove me to turn around and sprint to the fire exit. As the creature's dying moans faded away behind me, I slammed against the fire exit door with my left shoulder. It flew open straight away, and I began to pick my way down the stairs to the ground. I finally got to the ladder, and hoisted myself down into the alleyway that ran parallel to the Motel. **

**My body ached, my eyes were burning, and all I wanted more than anything was a few hours sleep. However, it just wasn't going to work out like that, and ten minutes later, I stood outside my car, pleasantly surprised it hadn't been stolen.**

**There weren't really a lot of places to go to, as far as I knew, everyone was dead. The only building that could be safe would be the hospital, about two miles away. There'd be medicine, beds, food….everything.**

**With one last look at the Motel, I stepped into my car and headed north, the memory of what I'd done still vivid in my mind.**


	2. Midnight Drive

**It was still dark outside, and the few streetlamps that hadn't been smashed in the rioting cast long slivers of light across the road. Every time my car glided out of the safety of the light, my heart would beat just a little faster. I'd heard rumours of those zombies being able to smash car windows. It didn't seem likely, though; I'd be surprised if they had enough muscle left on them to push open a door. The inside of the car was cool and dry, while the streets of Raccoon City were filthy with blood and smashed glass. I felt safe inside the car, as long as it wasn't dark.**

**The journey to the hospital went quickly, and only took about three minutes on the main roads. I leant over and grabbed the pistol from the passenger seat. Although I hadn't met anyone on the roads, I had my suspicions about this particular hospital anyway.**

**Umbrella bought it about a year ago, and suddenly the amount of patients going in shot down, although there seemed to be a lot of activity going on inside. The usual stories spread around, mainly by the suppliers, who had been delivering very…unusual... specimens that didn't have anything to do with medicine. If all the trouble had sprung from the hospital, I wouldn't be surprised. But that didn't mean I wasn't going on.**

**The building itself was slightly daunting, as were all the hospitals in Raccoon City. I quickly jogged up the stairs and tried the door. The handle turned, but for some reason the door wasn't opening, maybe there was a blockage on the other side.**

**Oh.**

**Of course there'd be a blockage, or a barricade. The whole damn city had been sinvaded; it wasn't like the doctors here were just carrying on like normal. But there must have been a way of getting in, something small that a monster couldn't fit through…**

**I made my way back down the steps and edged around the perimeter of the hospital, looking for a back door, or even a cellar entrance.**

'**Bingo.'**

**Carefully hidden away by some kind of herb tree was a small window, large enough for a person. There were finger marks around the edges of the window, but no blood. **

**Placing my hands on both edges of the window sill I jumped up in the air and pulled as hard as I could, struggling to squeeze through. Eventually, I fell down to the other side, exhausted. If that was how the survivors here came in and out, maybe I should go looking for another hideout…**

**I was in a ward on the first floor, probably for people with broken bones judging by the diagrams on the wall. Twelve beds were lined up in two rows of six, running parallel. Next to each were identical coffee tables, all covered in dirty brown stains. It didn't look too hygienic for a patient, but it made a good place to hide out for a while. The only object that caught my eye was a medicine cabinet nailed to the wall in the corner, next to bed eleven. Interesting.**

**The cabinet itself was white, with your standard Red Cross and Keep Away From Children stickers. But, something inside of it seemed to be leaking. I opened the cabinet slowly and rooted around inside. All I could find were a few bottles, empty, with various names that I nether understood or could pronounce. But right at the back was a small, glass vial. Because of the light, I couldn't make out the colour of the liquid, but it seemed to match the stuff that was leaking from the back of the cabinet. Taking care not to knock over any of the other bottles, I withdrew the vial from the cabinet and turned it over in my hands.**

**A foul smelling, dark yellow liquid sloshed around in the vial, a few more drops escaping from the crack at the bottom. Chances were that it was just your average painkiller that had gone way past the Sell By date. It was after all, tucked away at the back. But that didn't explain why it was unlabeled, and although I knew nothing about chemicals, it seemed to have been freshly mixed.**

'**I hope you're not going to anything stupid with that, are you?' A cold, low voice slurred in a Canadian accent. I whirled around and raised the pistol, to find a man in a lab coat staring at me over a pair of thick, heavy glasses.**

**He was probably only a few years older than me, possibly more, and sported a large, brown head of hair that sat on top of his forehead, deep set in wrinkles. Under the lab coat, he wore a light pink shirt and faded jeans, the kind you wore to do DIY in. Although at first glance he seemed young, his feature betrayed him, and was possibly knocking around forty, early fifties.**

'**W-what?' I stammered, moving so that he couldn't see the vial of yellow liquid. **

'**Don't try to hide it. I can smell it from here…as can he…' The doctor cocked his head to the left.**

'**Huh? Who?' I looked down at the liquid. 'What is this stuff, anyway?'**

'**You don't need to know,' He answered, taking off his glasses and placing them in his breast pocket, 'just…don't…move…'**

**I grinned. **

'**Why not? This something you guys been working on? Screwing around with human bodies, perhaps?'**

**He frowned. 'Not me personally, but I have been….involved,' He glanced behind him, and when I saw his face again, he looked nervous.**

'**Look,' he said, 'there isn't much time. Just...just give me the vial,'**

'**Why?'**

'**Please,' He pleaded, 'hand it over…'**

'**Fine,'**

**I took one last look at the vial, and tossed it over to him. He caught it with his right hand, and then dropped it on the bed like a hot potato.**

'**Ah,' He whispered. 'Oh dear. I thought it was the sample of that virus…oh dear. I think that might be…'**

**Suddenly, in a flurry of confusion, the doctor dived away from the bed, as something large, pink and grotesque crashed through a nearby window, sliding across the broken glass towards me. It seemed human, but couldn't have been. It's brain was exposed through shreds of flesh that had long since been torn away. It stood there, crouching, perched on long, skeletal arms that ended in razor like claws. The worst feature was the tongue, which never seemed to stop moving. It was long, and sharp, darting in, out and around the mouth of the creature in a hungry frenzy.**

**Its eyes met mine, and the monster let out a low, sharp, hiss that sounded all too similar to a man taking his final breath…**


End file.
